the needy people

One hour of sleep was all I had. I went to bed at twelve and woke up at one. The lovely Sharon was ill, feverish and needed fluids, needed pain relief, she needed warmth, and she needed to be held. This only lasted for a short while until the little man needed, began to stir. He too was feeling unwell and needed me beside him to assure him that all was well and he could sleep. He eventually fell into a deep enough sleep for me to slip away as the little lady began to wake up and demand her feed.

For a while I read as I fed. Then the moon caught me in its spell. I watched the moonset slowly between burps. Her un-lady-like noises didn’t detract from the moon’s beauty. This little belching baby has her own beauty and her own spell over me, more powerful than a million moons.

Back to the lovely Sharon, then back up to the little man. Eventually he fell to sleep again and I lay on the floor beside him regretting bringing up my dressing gown and a single thin blanket. I clung to him for warmth just as the lovely Sharon clung to me only a few hours ago. Eventually he drifted off again and I lay on. I could have gone back to bed, but I stayed. By this stage it was only a short while until the little lady would be hungry again. I knew the lovely sharon didn’t need me, as her codeine and paracetamol had kicked in. I just lay there anyway and felt my bones all incorrectly aligned on little man’s bedroom floor. I lay there and let the cold seep into me as the sensation in my left side seeped out. In a state of half sleepiness I lay there until the cockerel woke up and began to shout at the dawn. There is a thick wall between the chickens and my bed. Between them and the little man it’s only a window and a few feet of cold pre-dawn air. The little lady began to add her own unique crowing soon after. Time for a feed, time to ‘wake’.